Peter King of TheMMQB.com reports that he’s hearing the NFL will “discuss and consider” allowing Blandino to consult with referees during the replay review.

Last month, the chatter at the Combine indicated that the league already had been trying, in certain circumstances, to give Blandino a chance in real time to prevent an erroneous replay ruling.

If that’s what ultimately is adopted, it’s better than nothing. Better still would be the use of an on-site official who constantly monitors the available TV angles and intervenes not during the formal replay process but as the rulings on the field are made.

The tactic initially should be utilized for a fairly narrow band of blunders that can be quickly spotted and corrected. If successful, it’s use should be expanded.

Regardless of scope, the potentially season-deciding failure of the officiating crew at the NFC title game to realize that 49ers linebacker NaVorro Bowman had the ball in his possession and was down by contact should be enough to get the league to ensure that, when the millions watching at home know more than the seven game officials combined, a quick fix can be made via an off-field official telling the referee through an ear piece that a big mistake is about to be made.

Seahawks fan and I am happy Lynch fumbled to right that wrong. It did take some time off the clock, but also advance the ball for the 49ers about 10yrds so I think it worked out.

Hope he heals quick.

norvturnersneck says:Mar 17, 2014 11:11 PM

I’d love it if it was more like college. The necessity to go “under the hood” is dumb and a time waster. Send it to some tool in New York where it can be consistent and indifferent around the league. All of these officials call games so differently.

Isn’t this the guy that backs them up on most of their ridiculous blown calls after the fact? I feel like the NFL isn’t really interested in fixing this since the blown calls always conveniently seem to set up matchups that would bring them more ratings. For example: Number 1 defense vs. Number 1 offense, Jerome Bettis getting a ring in his last year, same with ray lewis, etc.

What the NFL should be very keen to understand is the fact that the constant rules changes are impacting the game to the negative. Listening to the constant stream of missed calls or how on every play there could be a penalty is leading me to enjoy College football more than the NFL

While the Bowman play was no doubt horribly officiated, someone would have to be blatantly ignoring the facts of that game to claim that San Francisco’s season was possibly decided on that play.

Had Frisco been awarded the ball, Bowman’s leg would have still been broken and they would have taken possession on the 2 yard line. As it turned out, Seattle fumbled on the very next play and Frisco recovered at the 12 yard line – putting them in a far better situation than they would have been had Kaep had to take the 1st down snap in Seattle’s endzone.

So not only did the horrible call NOT hurt Frisco, it actually helped them by giving them better field position because of the way things went down on the next play.

Frisco’s season was decided by Kaep’s horrible decision making that lead to 3 fourth quarter turnovers. Frisco’s season was decided by not being nearly as clutch as their opponent.

Please stop this madness!!! The millions at home did NOT know ore than the seven on the field. Human error is an intrinsic part of any human endeavor, and when you add official to that effort, you don’t remove it. If you are lucky, you remove bias, but you can’t remove human error. Instant replay added an illusion of a fix, but it was just an illusion. I want game officiated fairly, and with a minimum of error. You can add 10 layers of oversight and you still won’t remove human error. Indeed, you will just create extra layers of potential corruption, as more people further from the event are able t enforce an intentionally biased result. Let the players play and the official officiate. Mistakes will happen. But that is part of the game.

Refs, Players, Coaches are human they make mistakes and being on the wrong side of a bad call is to say the least maddening probably takes me until Wednesday to get over a defeat were i like to blame the refs, players, coaches but keep the game in the hands of the guys on the field please its not a perfect world.

uberniner says:Mar 18, 2014 4:39 AM

ABSOLUTELY get some replay help for the officials. They made way too many bad calls in critical situations.

As much as I hate to say it: Florio, your observations are spot on.
For years we have had the technology (replays, sufficient camera angles, etc) to rectify natural/human officiating mistakes. However, game-altering and in some cases, playoff-altering decisions are still defiling the game because purists refuse to remove the human element.

The NaVarro case reminds us that too much money is tied up in the outcome of individual games for untimely blunders. The NFL’s status quo of the informal, “get-it-right-most-of-the-time” tossing of officials under the hood is unfair to the referees.

Why not administer central replay? The NFL is far from poor (Roger Goodell “earned” $44Million last year) so why not ensure the integrity of the game?

Adopt nhl style review. Centralized hub to review all games removing bias. It’s the only way.

blackqbwhiterb says:Mar 18, 2014 7:42 AM

The Bowman play was a crime…. Truly a disgrace & black eye to the entire NFL. However, centralizing replay decision-making opens the door for corruption, if the central office has total control & ultimate authority in the hands of only one person, or small group.

FinFan68 says:Mar 18, 2014 8:56 AM

Get the dog and pony show off the field. Give each crew a replay official in the booth. Make that guy the crew chief and give him complete authority to change a call. Run it similar to the NCAA system. Centralizing the system will add to the perceived favoritism when certain teams get calls.

I hate the politics behind this all, the review process should be simple and effective. Several eyes should be viewing the play… and once the correct call is realized, it should be fixed. I hate the “this play cannot be challenged” or whatnot. If something happened and we can all see it… why should it not be corrected to display the actuality of the game. Human error will happen, however it should be minimized since we do have the technology to break each step of each play down if needed. People complain this will take too long…. but then complain all year about how the call was not made right. You cant have your cake and eat. There is a old saying “Better to take the time to do it right the first time, then to have to do it twice”, and since we can do it twice… it’s that much more important to spend the time to get the call right.